1.07.2006

A God Who Is Wrong

It seems to me that God may be wrong everyday. At least that's how I feel and history seems to point that way. Now before some of you declare me a heretic, continue to read the post. The reason for my line of thinking is a result of my reading of the book of Hosea. God is so passionately in love with his whore-ish people that he is willing to do anything to bring them back. This is the story of history. A prostitute people whom God holds out hope. He marries us and we cheat. We sell ourselves to slavery and he buys us back. We continue to give our lives to sin and yet he still loves us and gives himself over to the humility and scorn of being a lover whose love doesn't reciprocate. This is the story of a God who is wrong everyday. God bets it all on humanity coming back and loving Him. Luckily, we know (perhaps, more boldly, hope) that in the end, God will be right!

5 comments:

  1. I might say that God is infact right every day, because He has called His children to be His. They always are, and always will be, and their whoring has nothing to do with it. I have understood Hosea not so much as a picture of God's mistakeness about His children, but rather His faithfulness to them. God doesn't bet that we'll be perfect every day, far from. But He does know that we are His.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Micah, I would definately and wholeheartedly agree. He is always right, of course. I definately don't think Hosea is about God's mistakeness. The point of the post was to highlight God's agony and pain. We belong to God even when we try to leave Him-- our whoring does not negate our belonging to Him, nor did Gomer's whoring negate the fact that she still belonged to Hosea. God doesn't bet that we will be perfect. God doesn't even bet that we will be decently faithful either. Perfection and whoredom are very far from one another. More importantly than God knowing that we are His, is us knowing that we are His. This was the message to Israel-- you belong to me, stop what you are doing, it hurts badly, but I love you just the same and will never leave you.
    The reason for the statement God is wrong is to get at the heart of God's emotion/passion rather than trying to be intellectually correct regarding systematic theology.

    ReplyDelete
  3. im back! you can just call me Anonny. :-)

    You have observed two "contradictions" in this post- Gods *righteousness* and God's *mercy*. Does one need to be lacking for the other to work? No, God is whole, complete. He lacks nothing. His quailities are perfect. It is this question of righteousness (and subsequently justice) and mercy that cause many people to doubt the consistancy of God's character. But for this to be an issue, one must overlook one aspect- the cross. It is at this place that righteousness and justice meet mercy. Wholly righteous. And wholly merciful.

    None of his characteristics are less than complete.

    Also, God doesn't do work in vain, so He's never bets on anything. The thing is, he's always counting on himself, not us! His power in us, he knows we are incapable!

    Thanks for sharing your thoughts! God is certainly is never wrong, but He certainly was not required to spare his son for us. He didn't have to give us eternal life with Him, But He did! It is just amazing the God we have, isn't it?!

    Anonny

    ReplyDelete
  4. oh hehe, i just realised the second response was yours. Well, thats good! umm well i hope you didn't mind my post too, now that that's more clear to me. :-)

    Anonny

    ReplyDelete
  5. No problem. It was a good comment anyways. You are right on with God's wholeness, his ability to be merciful and righteous. In fact, I would say they are not two characteristics but one characteristic. He is merciful because he is righteous; he is righteous because he is merciful-- that about as good as I can state it; I wish I could state it better.

    ReplyDelete